"[Sir Gibbie] moved me the way books did when, as a child, the great gates of literature began to open and first encounters with noble thoughts and utterances were unspeakably thrilling."
-Elizabeth Yates, in the introduction to her edited version of Sir Gibbie, 1963
I don’t remember a time when I ... read more

At several key points in my life, a book has come along just when I needed it. In the last few months, there have been two: my friend Natasha Metzler's Emma and the Reasons, and Kingdom Single by Tony Evans.
Some books tell you that singleness is valuable, a gift even: these books helped me to feel ... read more

I wish I had been able to read this book back when I was single.
Then (and now!) I devoured love stories left and right. There is just something about a love story, isn't there? I can't get enough.
If you're also a love story aficionado, allow me to introduce you to one of the best love stories ... read more

There are days the book's title overwhelms me: Only One Life: How A Woman's Every Day Shapes An Eternal Legacy. With three, soon to be four, little ones ages six and under, my “typical” days don’t often look impressive.My head knows what I’m doing is valuable, even if I’m not accomplishing ... read more

“That is a good book it seems to me, which is opened with expectation and closed with profit.”
(Louisa May Alcott)
Did you ever sit on a phone book as a kid? Maybe you were too short to reach the table at grandma's house and the latest, hefty edition of The Yellow Pages was commissioned as a sort ... read more

"I just need some help."This wasn't the first time total and utter exhaustion had settled in. Being pregnant with number three made for many challenges while chasing a toddler and spending countless hours on the city bus getting my bigger one to school."Can you call someone to come over?" my ... read more

Where do you suppose shame comes from?I posed this question to a women's Bible class recently, and one young woman replied, "From Adam and Eve."From two leaf-clad sinners, trembling with shame in the bushes because they'd just distrusted the most loving Person in their life...and all for a ... read more

When I was single, I read a lot of relationship books. Sometimes they were encouraging, but often I would start trying to “read” them into my own relationships. “Oh, that sounds similar to what that guy said to me last week! Maybe he likes me and this is the beginning of our love story!” Being both ... read more

I'm not a mom and I don't know if I ever will be, but I cannot remember a time before I stepped (or toddled) into my role of big sister. My younger siblings are two, three, six, ten, eleven and twelve years younger than I, and came into our family from all over the world. We have skin tones at our ... read more

In August 2014, Thomas Umstattd, Jr. published his blog post, “Why Courtship is Fundamentally Flawed.” It sparked a firestorm, racking up more than 1,500 comments, provoking numerous rebuttals from other bloggers, and inspiring a Kickstarter campaign that led (just one year later) to a book entitled ... read more